Menagerie
by tielan
Summary: Lions and tigers and bears... It's just another day getting past the menagerie of Teyla's team-mates. Teyla and Cameron Mitchell romance.


**Menagerie**

There are four sayings in Atlantis.

--

_Don't go hand-to-hand against Ronon Dex._

Ronon singles him out during the morning training. "Mitchell."

Cameron was counting on watching, not participating, but he can't back out with over two dozen men watching him. Well, he can, but he's a Colonel with a standing to prove. Sam would say that he's a man with an ego to prove, but that's Sam.

He almost lands a blow on Ronon with a lashout-kick that's half-breakdancing, half-defense lessons. The big guy was expecting him to come at him high. He receives a grand thump in return, and comes down on one shoulderblade with a grunt.

From there, the outcome's pretty much as expected.

Except for the grin on Ronon's lips as he hauls Cameron up - a dark-maned lion with a toothy grin. "Can't do any better?"

"Hey, I didn't think I did that badly."

Ronon snorts. "You'll have to do better than that," he rumbles.

"Why?"

The other man's grip pulls him close enough to speak so the rest of the room can't hear. "Because Teyla kicks my ass, easy."

--

_Don't fly 'jumpers against John Sheppard._

It's not a 'jumper, it's an X-303.

Technically - in both the metaphorical and literal senses, it kicks the ass of any personal fighter craft in the Earth collection.

Technically, a 'jumper isn't a personal fighter craft.

Technically, it's not a fair competition when the pilot can fly loops around you using only the power of his mind. And does. Just to show off.

Cameron meets Sheppard in the Odyssey's pilot bay, tugging at his flightsuit and helmet, and eyeing the other man in his comfortable fatigues. "I thought we agreed that the smaller asteroids were mine - as part of the performance test scenario."

Sheppard looks as innocent as a grown man can. "You seemed to be having some trouble with them. I figured I'd lend a hand."

Given that the wing rudders of his X-303 were unevenly balanced, yeah, Cameron was having trouble accurately targeting the asteroids. But he'd been staying clear of the spinning debris, and he'd have got all the targets...eventually.

They turn into a corridor and catch Teyla in conversation with one of the Odyssey's crew. "Colonels." Her eyes warm as she looks from one man to the other. "Was the test successful?"

His hair's sticky and damp, he knows his skin's a bit red from the heat, and his t-shirt suddenly feels like slime against his skin, while Sheppard's standing there, cool as the proverbial cucumber.

"Sure," Sheppard says, flashing a tight, knowing smile. There's a sense of claws, of fangs kept carefully behind that smile, and Cameron hopes his smile's not too forced as he looks to Teyla.

"We did good," says Cameron, wishing he could pull off cool at this moment.

--

_Don't get into an argument with Rodney McKay._

Rodney McKay is not the most restful of dinner companions.

In fact, Cameron's trying to work out just how he got stuck with the talkative astrophysicist. Because one thing everyone knows is that Rodney McKay does not suffer fools and while Gramma Mitchell didn't raise no fools, Cameron doesn't mind playing one every now and then.

Yet McKay just came and sat down by him without so much as a 'is this place taken?'

"So," says McKay as he dredges through the sauce-covered meat and potatoes, "I heard that you're looking at being permanently assigned here. What's the matter with the Milky Way? Not enough Orii for you guys to straighten out anymore? Can we expect Dr. Jackson to turn up sometime soon? General O'Neill, maybe?"

Cameron was looking out for someone to help mitigate his situation, but McKay's bearish queries prick his temper just a little. "Pegasus galaxy, it's the next big frontier."

"Uhuh." Metal fork scrapes against plastic plate. "Well, we've already covered this frontier, so, huh, maybe another galaxy?"

"Okay," he says, giving the other guy the eye. "Did you wake up on the wrong side of bed this morning?"

"You don't _wake up_ on the wrong side of the bed," says McKay with a snort. "You _get up_ on the wrong side of the bed."

It's Cameron's turn to say 'uhuh.'

"Of course," McKay notes, "there's always waking up in the _wrong bed_."

The blue eyes are sharp and intelligent, and Cameron realises that the problem he had with his laptop this morning probably wasn't a random incident.

--

The morning after Cameron wakes up in the _right_ bed, holding an armful of a woman who makes her own choices about who she's going to 'share sheets' with, after not having his ass kicked for putting his hands and mouth where he put them, he doesn't care what 'Teyla's guys' have in store for him.

She was worth walking through the menagerie.

- **fin** -


End file.
